


Ladies' Night

by the_random_writer



Series: Trek Tales [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Career Change, Drinking, Female Friendship, Gen, Humor, Plans For The Future, Porn Watching, Scottish Character, Snark, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: Uhura, Chapel, Rand and McDonald catch up over some after-work drinks.Loosely connected to the previous entries in the series, but can be read as a standalone story.





	Ladies' Night

Nyota watched in mild amusement as Catherine McDonald strolled into the room and flopped onto a seat with a groan.

Catherine was silent for a few moments, then said, "I don't know about you, Ny, but I just had the _shittiest_ of shitty days." She leaned down to yank off her boots, paused, scanned around the cabin and frowned. "Christine not here yet?" she asked.

Nyota gestured over her shoulder. "She's making the drinks." She pointed at her friend's right foot, still stubbornly clad in a faux-leather shoe. "You need a hand with that?"

Catherine nodded and stuck out her limb. "Have at it," she said. "I've been on my feet all bloody day, so you might need to give it a really good tug."

From behind the wall that separated the cabin's private and public sections, Christine Chapel hollered out, "Kate, honey, I'm pretty sure you say that to _all_ the boys."

"Only if they have elegant hands," the engineer replied, grinning and shrugging slightly. "It's always the hands that do it for me. On women as well. Give me a piano player over an underwear model _any_ day."

Nyota braced, grabbed the boot at the heel and the toe and gave it a hearty pull. It resisted her efforts for a few moments, but eventually surrendered and popped off. "Better?" she asked as the engineer wiggled her aching toes.

Another nod. "Much better, thanks. Now all I need is a glass or six of wine." Catherine raised her voice, calling to Chapel again. "The hell are you doing back there, woman? I hope you're not bothering with that stupid, wee wine aerator thing. The way I'm feeling right now, you can just bring me a bottle and a straw. Don't even worry about pouring it into a glass."

The nurse stuck her head around the edge of the screen. "You hush, girl. I'm making Ny's drink, and you know how tricky it is to balance the layers. You want red or white?" she politely enquired.

Catherine let out a snort. "Like you even need to ask."

"White it is, then," Christine confirmed with a nod. "How many fingers?"

"Sod the fingers," McDonald shot back. "Pour me a whole bloody hand."

Beside her, Nyota smiled as she leaned out to grab a handful of chips. "That good, huh?" she asked.

"If by good, you mean absolutely fucking terrible, then yes."

Christine emerged from behind the wall, bearing a drinks-laden tray. "Here you go," she said, handing over a glass of white wine that was almost full to the brim. "You'll feel much better once you've had some of that."

She held the tray out to Nyota, offering her friend a slender glass containing a dark-to-light double layer.

Catherine drew her brows together. "What's that one called again?"

"This is a Black Velvet," Nyota explained. "Sparkling wine on the bottom, a dark beer of some kind on the top. The bottom's _supposed_ to be Champagne, but that's hard to come by out in deep space."

"Seems like a terrible waste of perfectly good wine to me," the engineer complained. She gestured at Chapel's stumpy container. "I assume you're having your usual muck?"

Christine grinned, picked the glass up and swirled it dramatically under her nose, inhaling the alcohol's scent. "Jameson Black Select Reserve. Triple distilled and double charred. One finger of whiskey, one finger of water. Can't beat it."

"What the hell is it with blueshirts and whiskey anyway?" the Scotswoman wanted to know. "It's Geoff's choice of poison as well, and don't get me started on how much of the stuff Leonard can drink."

"You tell us," Christine advised. "You're the one who grew up in Scotland."

"Hang on a minute, we make Scotch, not whiskey," Catherine reminded her friends. "Not that it really matters. Can't stand the stuff, no matter how it's made or where it's from. Think you might as well be drinking medicinal alcohol."

"Oh, honey, this is _much_ better than medicinal alcohol, trust me."

Nyota laughed and tucked her feet under her on the seat. "That what you blueshirts all hit when the supplies of the good stuff start to run down?"

Christine grinned again. "Why do you think Leonard orders fifty litres of isopropyl every time we go into port?"

Catherine wasn't impressed. "Please tell me you're joking," she said, giving the nurse a thunderous glare. "You don't _actually_ drink the medicinal alcohol, do you?"

"Course I'm joking," Christine retorted. "Stuff'll kill you quicker than Scotty's hooch. Even Leonard wouldn't touch it." She pursed her lips. "At least, I _assume_ he wouldn't touch it. The way that man behaves sometimes, it wouldn't surprise me if he was pouring it into his morning coffee."

The three women paused as the comm signal rang.

Nyota unwound herself from the chair and leaned out to press the comm button on her desk. "This is Uhura," she said.

"Hey, Ny, it's Jan," a harried-sounding woman said. "I'm still trying to wrap up my shift, I'll be there as soon as I can."

A sour look settled on Nyota's face. "Captain Fantastic running you into the ground again?"

They heard Janice let out a sigh. "He wore the green shirt today."

In perfect unison, Catherine and Christine winced.

"He's probably been at Ensign Akin's homemade baklava again," Catherine whispered, making the other woman grin. "When she puts out a box in the officer's mess, he's like a vacuum cleaner with hair."

"Don't let him run you too hard, okay?" Nyota warned her friend. "We're not at war, and nobody's shooting at us, so I'm pretty sure whatever he's got you doing tonight can just as easily be done tomorrow."

"Yes, mother," Janice sardonically said. "It's not that much, really. I promise I'll be done soon."

"You better be," Catherine hollered out, loud enough for the yeoman to hear. "You don't get here soon, I'm gonnae drink all the bloody wine."

Janice laughed and said, "So how's that different from any other night?"

"You calling me a lush?"

"Let's just say anyone who tries to get between you and a bottle of Pinot Gris better not be planning to die in their bed surrounded by their nearest and dearest."

"Slanderous lies," Catherine muttered, turning to give Nyota a wink. She raised her voice to the comm channel again. "Just for that, I'm drinking your first glass for you."

"Better get a move on, girl," Nyota warned. "You don't get here soon, we'll only have bread and water left."

"Won't be long. Have a cold one ready for me."

The channel cut out, Nyota settled back in her seat.

"I complain about my work sometimes, but compared to Janice, I'm actually doing just fine," Catherine commented. "It's a job I could _never_ do."

Nyota paused to take a sip of her drink. "Could be even worse."

"How's that?"

"She could be doing the same job for Admiral Morrow instead."

A round of groans this time instead of winces.

"Think I'd rather walk through Yorktown Plaza completely naked than work for _that_ bampot," was Catherine's none-too-polite opinion.

Christine snorted into her glass. "He does kinda make the Captain look like a saint."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," Nyota protested, grabbing another handful of chips. "I mean, don't get me wrong, the Captain's a really decent guy, but he has his idiot moments as well."

"Slightly easier to forgive than Morrow's though," Catherine pointed out, scooping up some chips of her own.

Christine cocked a questioning brow. "Why's that?"

"The Captain's shirt-ripping, bampot moments usually happen completely by accident," the engineer explained. "Pretty sure Morrow's are all meticulously planned in advance."

"There is that, yeah," the nurse acknowledged.

"Who the hell had the bright idea of making Morrow an Admiral, anyway?" Nyota complained. "Was he _really_ the best they could find?"

Christine swirled her drink in her glass. "Leonard has a theory about that. He thinks Morrow was the _least_ idiotic person on the candidate list, so they chose him because they thought he would do the smallest amount of harm."

"Either that, or he has holos of somebody very important doing something very lewd to a horse," Catherine proposed.

Nyota grinned. "Can't be any worse than the photos of Commodore Rogoski that did the rounds a couple of months ago."

"Don't _remind_ me," the engineer dramatically said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "I felt like I wanted to wash my eyeballs out with fluoric acid."

"Just be glad it was an old-fashioned photo instead of a modern holo," Christine said. "Seeing it in two dimensions was bad enough. Can you imagine how traumatic it would have been in three?"

"In Commodore Rogoski's defense, it _is_ very difficult to look good in a thong, no matter what age and body type you are," Catherine calmly pointed out.

Christine nodded. "Thongs should be against the law. Regardless of gender, species or age."

"Hear, hear," Nyota said, holding out her now half-finished drink.

The sound of three glasses clinking together echoed around the compact space.

"Speaking of age," Nyota continued, "isn't it Leonard's birthday next week?"

Christine nodded again. "Not that he'll admit it, of course. He hates his birthday. Says it's just the galaxy's way of reminding him he's moved a year closer to death."

"We should probably think about a present. Is there anything he needs or wants that would be easy enough for us to pull together in a couple of days?"

"What, other than a kick in the ass?" Chapel tartly suggested.

Catherine came to the CMO's defense. "Come on, now, he has his moments, but he's not _that_ bad," she protested. "And if you think Leonard's grumpy, you should try working with Keenser for a week instead."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen our beloved doctor this morning, ripping Ensign Rutkunas a new one," Christine warned. She swallowed down the last of her drink and leaned out to set her empty glass on the table. "He almost made the poor bastard cry."

"I've worked with Rutkunas a couple of times, and the guy's a moron," was Nyota's opinion. "So whatever he did, he probably deserved it." She furrowed her brows. "What _did_ he do?"

"Can't tell you. Medical issue. Patient confidentiality rules."

"Bugger that," McDonald exclaimed. "Spill the beans, or we tell your beloved doctor about your involvement in the whole beer pong thing."

Christine gave her friend dagger eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

"Fucking watch me, hen."

Chapel sighed and reached out to collect her glass. She rose from her seat and strode into the other room to mix another generous measure. She was back less than a minute later, carrying another packet of chips. She dropped the bag on the coffee table, waving at the other two women to help themselves.

"Rutkunas found out the hard way what kind of substances he should or shouldn't be using as lube."

Catherine and Nyota grimaced.

"Bad?" the former said.

"Blisters."

"On his _warp nacelle_?"

Christine nodded. "And on the palm of his hand as well."

As Nyota giggled, Catherine said, "Aye, well. That's Ensign Rutkunas for you. A literal _and_ figurative wanker."

"You should've heard the lecture McCoy gave him."

"Good?"

"He almost needed a second bottle of soothing lotion just to treat the massive burn he got from the CMO."

"Nothing like that ever happens down in Engineering, you know," Catherine said in a slightly despondent tone. "There's an occasional argument about whose turn it is to recalibrate the secondary coolant flow sensors, but it's mostly as dull as fuck."

"It's because you're all so calm and polite," Nyota offered.

"Screw that. It's because most of the people I work with are so anti-social. Typical bloody engineers. They'd all rather talk to machines than to people."

Christine shrugged. "Can't say I blame them. At least the machines mostly make sense."

"And mostly do what they're bloody well told," Catherine added.

"And never attempt to mansplain your job to you," Nyota concluded, sounding annoyed.

Christine and Catherine sighed.

"Go on, then," the head nurse instructed. "What idiot was it this time?"

"Ensign Fossey."

Catherine furrowed her brows. "Don't think I've met him yet. Which one's he?"

"Sulu's new backup helmsman," Nyota explained. "His father teaches First Contact protocols at the Academy, and his mom's really high up in the diplomatic corps, so he's got some privilege baggage going on."

"Hikaru's got one of the best entitlement bullshit detectors I've ever seen, so he'll thrash that attitude out of him pretty quickly," Christine said.

Catherine nodded in agreement. "He certainly will. But what did this Fossey guy do?"

"He tried to explain to me at length what a difficult language Romulan is to learn."

"Seriously?"

"Uh huh."

"Does he _know_ you speak Romulan?" Catherine asked.

Nyota gave them a satisfied grin. "I thanked him for his helpful advice in the dialect that's the hardest to learn, so if he didn't before, he does now."

"Good girl," Christine acknowledged, raising her glass in salute.

Catherine let out a plaintive sigh. "I wish I worked on the bridge."

"You say that now, but ten minutes of listening to Spock and McCoy bickering like a pair of passive-aggressive, angry, old women, you'll be begging to go back to your old job," Nyota warned. "It's honestly not as exciting as it sounds."

"Okay, now _there's_ something I need to understand," Catherine said, sitting up straighter in her seat. "Why the hell does Doctor McCoy spend so much bloody time on the bridge? Does he not have enough work to deal with in Sickbay instead?"

Christine raised a defensive hand. "Whatever the reason, I am absolutely _not_ complaining. Whenever Leonard goes on one of his bridge excursions, I can actually get on with my work."

"Fair enough, but what is it that makes him decide to go?"

Christine shrugged and stared at her drink.

Now it was Nyota who narrowed her eyes. "Girl, please tell me you're not somehow arranging the doctor's little visits?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Nyota made a disgusted sound. "You are as well, aren't you?"

Beside her, Catherine laughed. "Somebody's been naughty," she sing-songed at their medical friend.

Christine sniffed and flicked her hair. "I can't help it if Leonard is very easily persuaded that the Captain might need a twice-daily, in person visit from the CMO."

"From the way Ny's glaring at you right now, if you don't stop whatever it is you're doing, the Captain won't be the only one," the engineer warned.

"Ooh, you gonna tear me a new one, Ny?" Christine challenged.

"Just learned a new choke-hold manoeuvre from my _Julan Doh_ instruction program. Been looking for a good excuse to try it out."

Catherine waved her tumbler at the other two women. "Just let me know when it all goes down. I'll be the one at the side of the ring with the medikit, the recorder and the huge bowl of popcorn."

"You've never wanted to study a martial art?" Nyota asked the engineer.

"Not really, no. Took some basic hand-to-hand classes back at the Academy, but only what I needed to earn my graduation credits. To be honest, I'm more of a 'hit them on the side of the head with a bottle and run away at full speed' kind of girl."

Christine shrugged. "Nothing wrong with that approach."

Nyota grinned. "As long as you don't run out of bottles."

"Why do you think I drink so much wine?" Catherine said. She looked at her empty glass and frowned. "Speaking of wine, who else needs a refill?"

The door to the cabin trundled open, admitting a frazzled-looking Janice Rand. "Did I hear someone mention wine?" she asked.

The other three women clapped and cheered.

Catherine pushed up out of her chair. "Sit your arse down," she said to Janice, pointing at the vacated seat. "Let me get you a drink."

Janice didn't need to be told twice. She flopped onto the comfortable chair, then reached up to undo and shake out her braids.

"She's taking her hair down," Uhura hollered to the Scotswoman next door. "Better make it an extra large measure."

Catherine quickly reappeared, carrying two very large and very full glasses of wine. She handed one of them to the new arrival. "Dry and cold, just the way you like it," she said. She pulled up another seat, then held her glass out over the table. "Cheers," she offered.

Her friends raised their own glasses to meet the charge.

Janice took a deep gulp of her wine, closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh. "Oh, man, I really needed that."

Nyota pushed a bowl of chips to the other side of the table. "So what's got the Captain's panties in a bunch today?"

This time, Janice gave a frustrated groan. "He's been _accidentally_ forgetting to fill out some stupid report he's supposed to complete at the end of the month," she started.

"And someone higher up the food chain's just realized he's been a naughty boy?" Nyota concluded.

"Vice Admiral Santiago."

Everybody winced again.

"Now _there's_ a woman I would never mess with," Christine declared. "Terrifyingly competent doesn't even _begin_ to describe her. Why the hell didn't she get the Sector Chief job instead of Morrow?"

"It's like I said," Catherine chimed in. "Morrow's got holos of someone very important doing something very lewd to a horse."

"Did everything get sorted out?" Nyota enquired. Her expression fell. "We're not about to be put through one of Santiago's audits, are we? I've heard about those, and they don't sound like fun."

Janice shook her head as she drank. "Hmm, no, we're not gonna be called in for a review. She was really annoyed about the missing reports, but the Captain managed to keep her happy."

"He _can_ be quite charming when he puts his mind to it," Christine pointed out.

Nyota gave a mocking snort. "Don't think charm's what you really need to pacify a woman like that. Pretty sure she'd much rather be wooed with an empty crew misconduct log and top-of-the-range efficiency scores instead."

"We can do that," Catherine said. "We _are_ the best ship and crew in the fleet. Top of the range efficiency scores should be a piece of cake."

" _Should_ ," Nyota stressed. "But the empty misconduct log's probably never gonna happen. Especially when so many people keep doing so many monumentally stupid things, like building a goddamn water slide through the middle of the ship." Her voice rose, and she speared the engineer with a glare.

Catherine rolled her eyes. "For Christ's sake, that was _one_ time. And I got to see McCoy's tattoo, so it was worth every minute of the administrative suspension the Captain gave me."

"I didn't know McCoy had a tattoo," Janice said.

Christine nodded. "He gets embarrassed when you ask him about it. I get the feeling he was _stupendously_ drunk when it happened."

The yeoman frowned. "Isn't it his birthday next week?"

"We were talking about that earlier, yeah," Nyota confirmed. "We were wondering what we could get him for his birthday."

"Laid?" was Janice's dry response.

Smiles and laughs, then three pairs of eyes turned to McDonald.

"I don't know why you're all looking at me," Catherine protested. "I gave it my best shot, and I got nowhere with him. I even offered to watch a _skin_ movie with him, for Christ's sake. How much more obvious do I have to be?"

"I thought the two of you actually did the movie thing?" Christine asked, looking confused.

"It was all arranged, then Lieutenant Leslie fell arse over tit down a Jefferies Tube and broke most of the bones in his leg, so Leonard had to go deal with that instead. He never came back to reschedule, so I figured it was something he hadn't actually wanted to do."

The next question was from Janice. "That bother you?"

The engineer shrugged. "A wee bit, yeah, but not enough to bug him about it. If he's decided he's not interested, he's decided he's not interested. Nowt I can do about that."

"Could've been good for him, though," Christine chipped in.

"Maybe, maybe not. Don't really know him well enough yet to say. Maybe the business with his ex-wife turned him off women to the point he'd rather just be on his own. I can understand that."

"Riley's convinced he's dating the Captain," was the yeoman's next piece of advice.

Nyota rolled her eyes. "Riley's an idiot. Cute and harmless, and not a bad singer, but _still_ an idiot."

"I actually asked Leonard about that, back at the Secret Santa party, and he told me they're not," Catherine revealed. She looked at Rand. "If they were, _you're_ the person who'd see it first. Have you noticed anything going on?"

Janice shook her head. "Nothing obvious, no."

"You haven't found any discarded medical tunics stuffed under the Captain's bed?"

Another shake. "I don't think I'd ever find one even if there _was_ something going on. You might not think it to look at him, but the Captain's actually a really tidy guy." She shuddered slightly. "Not like the last Captain I worked for."

"Yeah, who was that again?" Nyota asked.

"Captain Muniz Garcia on the _USS Valkyrie_ ," Janice replied. She paused to take a sip of her wine. "I swear the woman would've been happy living in a pit of her own filth."

"If it's any consolation, I think the Captain's just as glad to have you as you are to have him," Nyota advised. "His last yeoman drove him nuts."

"Guy's name was Brisbourne, right?"

Three heads nodded.

"If the mess he made of the correspondence and audit logs is any indication of what he was like, it's no wonder the Captain was glad to see him go," the yeoman explained. "Took me a month to put them all in the right order, plus I had to regenerate half of the Captain's encryption keys."

"The Captain's _definitely_ been happier since you got here," Nyota said.

Christine snorted into her glass. "Just a pity that happiness hasn't rubbed off on Leonard as well."

Nyota's lips twitched. "I think Kate already tried that."

Christine raised a questioning brow.

"Rubbing off on him," Nyota explained with a mischievous grin.

As Christine snorted again, Catherine stretched and leaned back in her chair. "I gave it my best," she told her friends. "I guess he'll just have to rub off on himself instead."

"Pretty sure they all do that," Janice murmured as she sifted through the bowl of snacks, searching for more of her favourite chips.

The head nurse nodded. "Ensign Rutkunas certainly does."

Nyota stared at her empty glass, let out a theatrical sigh, then turned her best puppy-dog stare on her friend.

Christine huffed and rolled her eyes. "You want me to make you another one, don't you?"

"It's only because you make them so well. When I do it, I mess up the layers."

"I've told you before, you're not patient enough. You have to pour the beer really slowly, preferably over the back of a spoon," Christine explained. She stood up and gestured for Nyota to give her the glass, then looked at her other two friends. "Anyone else need a refill while I'm there?"

Janice threw back her last mouthful of wine and held out her own empty container. "Same again, please," she said with a smile.

"I'm good for now," Catherine said, holding up a hand to decline. "I'll have some more, but not just yet. Need to pace myself if I want to feel like a functioning human being tomorrow."

"Girl, please, that's what metabolizers are for," Nyota scolded.

"True, but it's also my shift switchover day, so I'm working through alpha and half of beta as well."

"So glad I don't have to do that now," Christine said as she disappeared into the other room. "One of the main reasons I took the Enterprise posting, knowing I'd never have to work anything other than alpha."

"Speaking of postings, isn't it transfer season soon?" Nyota enquired, looking to Janice for a reply.

"Deadline's the end of the month," the younger woman confirmed. She smiled and nodded a silent thanks as Christine returned with her next glass of wine.

"How many requests has the Captain received?" McDonald asked. She hastily raised a hand. "I know you can't tell us who put them in, just curious about the count."

"Seven so far," Janice told her. "But the records show he's never received more than ten requests by the time the deadline comes, so I don't really expect that number to grow."

Nyota nodded. "Can't say that number's much of a shock. Most people know a good thing when they see it. They have to fight to earn an Enterprise posting, so they only leave if they're having a problem they can't resolve any other way. Or if they think they can move up the ladder more quickly by transferring out to another ship."

"I almost asked to be transferred out," Catherine quietly announced.

"What the _hell_ would you go and do that for?" Christine demanded as she brought Nyota a second, beautifully-crafted drink. "I thought you liked it here."

Catherine sighed and chewed on a handful of chips. "I do, but I'm beginning to realize it's not what I really want."

"You want to move up, be an Engineer's Second on a smaller and older ship instead of a Third on the newest and biggest?" Janice proposed.

"It's not that, no," Catherine replied, shaking her head. "I want a more senior position, but more as a technical specialist, so not one that comes with a leadership role. Scotty's good at it, but it seems a bit too much like adult daycare to me. Don't think I have the patience for it."

Christine offered some useful advice. "It's not for everyone. There are days when I honestly want to knock some of my nurses' heads together. Or make them all stand on the naughty step with their faces into the wall."

"So where would you rather be?" Janice asked.

"Got a message a couple of weeks ago from my Academy supervisor, Commander Fisher, asking if I'd be interested in joining a new weapons research project she's just received provisional funding for."

" _Weapons_ research?" the yeoman repeated. "I wouldn't have thought that was really your thing."

"Was what I specialized in for my final year. And not just defensive or non-lethal weapons, either. The really serious shit as well. Stuff that would keep you awake at night just knowing someone had put them together."

Nyota was just as confused as Janice. "So why the _hell_ have you spent the last two years looking after our coolant flow sensors and transporter controls? What the hell happened?"

"Admiral Marcus happened."

The communications officer nodded and sighed. "The incident with the Vengeance, right."

"Most people don't realize how much of a shitstorm that situation actually caused," the engineer said. "Starfleet went into damage control mode, trying to persuade the public it wasn't turning into some kind of despotic military organization. They panicked and over-reacted, so any projects that had even _slightly_ aggressive overtones got totally kiboshed overnight. Including my final year thesis."

"But you graduated on schedule, right?" Janice asked. "At the end of the year with the rest of your class?"

"The academic review board decided it wouldn't be fair to make me redo my whole thesis when I'd basically done nothing wrong, so yeah, I did." Her expression soured. "But they confiscated all of my work, made me take a bunch of courses on transporter dynamics instead. Didn't mind the extra coursework so much, but I was _seriously_ pissed about my thesis. I was halfway to developing a really nifty mass driver rifle with a muzzle velocity of twenty-four hundred metres per second."

"Is that good?" Janice asked in a tentative tone.

"Was so fast and so accurate, you could take out a chipmunk at three thousand metres before you even realized you'd pulled the trigger."

"I didn't realize Starfleet still had that much interest in projectile weapons," Nyota said. "I thought they were only researching energy weapons now."

"Technically speaking, a phaser bank _is_ a projectile weapon. The projectiles are just made of energy instead of flechettes or darts."

The comms officer threw a handful of chips at her friend. McDonald ducked, the chips scattered across the coffee table and floor. 

"Don't be such a pedant," Nyota tartly said. "You know damn well what I meant."

"The primary focus is on energy weapons, but there's still a need for projectile weapons as well, especially in dirtside engagements, or where there might be a dampening field in place." The engineer shrugged. "It's all a matter of physics, whatever the delivery method. At the end of the day, you're still just converting energy from one form to another. If you're trying to kill someone, it doesn't really matter if you do it by blowing up every cell in their body at the same time or by shredding their vital organs to pieces. Dead is dead."

Christine heaved an unhappy sigh. "I just wish we lived in a galaxy where we didn't need weapons like that at all."

"That's understandable," Catherine cautiously said. "You're a nurse, so it's your job to stop people from dying, whereas a weapon's job is to maim or kill them."

"We _all_ wish we lived in a galaxy where we didn't need weapons at all," Uhura added. "Unfortunately, what we want the galaxy to be and what the galaxy actually is are still two very different things."

The head nurse wasn't appeased. "I just feel like we're stuck in a vicious cycle. We say we need weapons to defend and protect ourselves, but that provokes other races into building bigger and better weapons of their own, because they're can't be sure we're never gonna go bad and end up using our weapons against them. How can we persuade other races to put their differences aside and focus on building a peaceful, non-violent cooperative future for everyone in the Federation when we're pouring a whole bunch of time and money into developing instruments of violence and death?"

The answer came from the engineer. "Because some races don't want a peaceful, non-violent, cooperative future. Some people want to grind us into the dust. When they come looking for us, we have to be ready and able to push them back."

"What, like we were ready for Krall? The Enterprise went into that battle with the best weapons Starfleet's money could buy, and those weapons were absolutely _useless_ against him. What the hell is the point in pouring so many scarce and expensive resources into something that might not even work?"

"The weapons the Enterprise had at Altamid didn't work against Krall, but they _will_ work against the vast majority of other aggressors, so I wouldn't say they're completely useless. And I'll bet you a really good bottle of Scotch that Starfleet's already developing not just a shitload of counter-measures, but a swarming weapon of its own as well."

"You sound very sure of that," Janice calmly pointed out.

"Let's just say I'm going on more than a hunch."

"That's what this project's all about, isn't it? The one your old supervisor just got funding for."

Catherine simply smiled.

"So much for Starfleet not being a military organization," Chapel murmured.

The engineer finished her wine. "It's been four years since the Marcus debacle, and our shiny, new President's slightly more hawkish than the last one, so it's not surprising they're starting up a few projects again. It'll all be done on the quiet, though. Nothing too flashy at first."

"You gonna take Commander Fisher up on her offer?" Nyota asked, wisely steering the conversation back to less troublesome ground.

"Not sure. If the provisional funding turns into actual funding, I'd be very tempted. It'll be cutting edge work, I'd finally get to put my specialty to use, and I already know I'd like my boss."

"Plus, you'd be on a planet instead of a ship," Janice noted. "The Enterprise is nice, but you can't beat the feeling of walking on real ground."

"Except I'd probably be working at the Bondar facility on Mars. I'd be able to see the sky, but I couldn't go outside without a suit, so wouldn't really be very different from being on a ship."

Christine sighed again. "Well, keep us posted on what you decide. Would hate to see you leave, and I'd be happier if you used all that engineering knowledge you have to build something productive and non-violent instead, but if it's what you want, it's what you want."

Catherine raised her glass in salute.

"What about you?" Nyota said to the nurse. "You have any plans to move on in the near future?"

Christine shook her head. "Maybe in a year or two, but not right now. I'm Head Nurse on the best and biggest ship in the fleet. The only way to move up from here is to apply for a similar job on a Starbase instead."

"There is actually a way to move up but also stay here," Catherine advised with a grin.

"What's that?"

"Steal your boss's job."

"Uh, yeah, except my boss is a doctor and I'm only a nurse?"

"So go back to school and get your medical degree," the engineer said. "And don't give me that whole 'but I like being a nurse' thing."

"But I _do_ like being a nurse," Christine protested.

"Which is absolutely fine, except we all know you'd like having your own medical department even more. And I mean the whole thing, not just the nursing team."

"She has a point," Janice said.

Christine stared into her glass, thinking the suggestion through. "Even if I did get my medical degree, and earn the right to be CMO, I'd never be posted back to the Enterprise. Not unless Leonard decided to leave."

Nyota snorted. "He won't leave unless the Captain leaves. Think the two of them made some kind of deal back in their final year."

Janice leaned over to grab another handful of chips. "I don't understand why McCoy's even here. I don't talk to him much, but whenever I do see him, he's always complaining about how much he hates being in space."

Catherine groaned and took a swig of her wine. "I swear, if I hear him say that stupid line about space being disease and danger one more fucking time, I'll strip him naked and kick him out of the lower airlock."

"He's not wrong, though," was Nyota's opinion. "It kinda is, when you think about it."

"Aye, but the trick is to _not_ think about it. You start worrying about all the stuff out here that could kill you, you'll end up in a padded cell wearing a nice jacket that fastens up the back."

Three blank, questioning looks.

The engineer tutted and rolled her eyes. "You know, a straitjacket?"

Still no response.

"The things they used to make people with mental health problems wear back in the old days to keep them under control?"

Now it was Christine's turn to groan. "Are you reading those twentieth century horror stories again?"

"They're interesting!"

"You need a new hobby," Uhura warned.

"There's nothing wrong with the hobbies I have."

"You drink like a fish, build your own guns and know _far_ too much about twentieth century torture devices," Christine noted, counting the items off on her fingers.

"So?"

"Have you felt the urge to harm any cute baby animals lately?"

"Not sure," the engineer said, frowning slightly. "Does Pavel count?"

Janice snickered into her wine. "Uh oh. What did the walking erection do now?"

"He tried to tell me logarithms were invented in Russia."

"Where _were_ they invented?" Christine asked.

Catherine sighed and glared.

"Where do you think?" Nyota asked.

"Scotland?"

Catherine slapped her hand on her chair. "Ten points to the gorgeous, amazing woman in blue."

"You'll have to forgive my ignorance. You don't cover a lot of mathematics when you're studying for a nursing degree." She frowned as she took a sip of her drink. "Actually, that's not entirely true. I studied statistical modelling and differential equations as part of my epidemiology course. Can't remember if we ever studied logarithms."

"I studied a bunch of math for my Communications classes," Uhura said. "Calculus, Linear Algebra, Geometry, Probability, Optimization, Discrete Math, Transform Theory. You name it, I'm pretty sure I know it."

Catherine grinned. "Who _doesn't_ love a good Palomar-Alocchi Transform?"

"I hope you're not using that as a chat-up line," Janice said. "Might explain why your movie night with McCoy was a bust if you are."

They jumped as the doorbell bonged.

"You invite someone else?" Christine said to Nyota.

"Just us four."

The cabin owner leaned out to press the comms button again. "Uhura," she announced to her guest.

"Uhura, it's McCoy."

"Hey, doc, what's up?"

"Sorry to bother you out of hours, but I'm having trouble figuring out the whereabouts of my head nurse," the CMO explained. "Don't suppose you've seen her lately?"

Nyota smiled and pressed the button to open the door.

A few seconds later, Leonard McCoy warily entered the room, carrying a PADD in his hand. He nodded politely at Nyota, smiled as he finally found Christine, then frowned and visibly swallowed as he realized the cabin contained a small gaggle of women.

"You need me for something?" Christine enquired.

McCoy nodded and sauntered over to stand by her chair. "Need your thumbprint on the results of this month's physical exams. Tryna get them into HQ before the end of the day, head Santiago off at the pass."

Christine took the PADD from him. "Yeah, Janice mentioned she's on a bit of a mission. Anything to avoid a full audit of our records, right?" She swiped through the pages one by one, leaving her print in the bottom right corner of every page.

"You should really check what you're signing, you know," McCoy advised. "Proper, legal procedure 'n all."

Christine paused to give him a stony glare. "You want them finished tonight or not?" she asked, then resumed her thumb-pressing duties.

"So what've you girls been talking about?" the doctor asked as he waited for Christine to finish.

"Ladies," McDonald corrected.

"Sorry?"

"We're _ladies_ , Leonard. Fully functioning and capable adults. None of us have been 'girls' for at least eight years."

"Except I've worked on this ship long enough to know y'all are not ladies, either. Where I come from, ladies don't even _think_ about drinking a metre of ale, much less know how to down one in less than fifteen seconds without spilling a goddamn drop." He looked at Uhura as he spoke.

Nyota furrowed her brows in mock-concern. "Oh, I'm sorry, do my beer-drinking abilities offend your sensible, delicate, gentleman feelings?"

McCoy sneered and rolled his eyes. 

His eyes then fell on their drinking containers. "So what's been the choice of poison tonight?"

Janice answered his question first. "White wine for me and Kate, some _vile_ mixture of beer and sparkling wine for Ny, and the usual fingers of whiskey for Chris."

"Whiskey, huh?" McCoy repeated, his interest piqued. "Anything I might care to try?"

"Jameson Black Select Reserve," Christine said without looking up from the PADD.

The doctor wrinkled his nose. "Not a fan of that brand, so it's all yours."

"Thanks," was Christine's dry response. "All done," she then announced, handing the PADD back to her boss. "Should keep Santiago off our backs for at least another month."

McCoy turned to head for the door. "Don't go drinking too much tonight," he warned. "You're all on alpha shift tomorrow. You turn up for work hung-over, your bosses'll kick your ass."

Lieutenant McDonald wasn't impressed. "No offense, Leonard, but you telling us not to drink too much is like Satan telling us not to be naughty."

"You calling me the devil?"

"I'm not sure. Is the devil a raging hypocrite as well?"

Leonard raised a reproving finger. "You watch that mouth of yours, Lieutenant. You're due for your next physical soon, so you _really_ don't want to piss me off."

Catherine sank into her chair. "Physical, schmysical," she muttered, casually waving the warning away. "Like that threat'll even _remotely_ frighten any woman of reproductive age."

"Don't worry about it," Christine chimed in. "I'm allowed to do them as well. Say whatever the hell you want, I promise he won't get anywhere near you."

McCoy narrowed his eyes at Chris. "Not sure I like you anymore," he complained. "Think I preferred it when you were new to the job and did exactly as you were told."

"Fire me, then. Hire a more obedient replacement."

"Not a chance. You're a pain in the ass, but you're an efficient, well-trained, organized, extremely competent pain in the ass."

Nyota raised a questioning hand. "Am I going mad, or did I just hear Leonard say something _nice_ for a change?"

"Don't get used to it," the CMO warned. "And don't go telling folks I said something pleasant, either. Wouldn't want them to think I was going soft in my old age."

"You can get pills for that, you know," Catherine calmly observed.

"For what?"

"Going soft."

McCoy flashed his brows. "I wouldn't know."

Christine covered her ears with her hands. "Okay, stop, please," she pleaded. "This is _not_ a subject I want to hear my boss talk about with anyone, never mind my three closest friends."

Catherine leaned over, pretending to whisper to Rand. "Someone call Geoff and let him know sensible, delicate, Southern feelings are obviously a contagious disease."

McCoy smiled, shook his head and resumed his journey to the door. "You _ladies_ enjoy the rest of your night." He paused again just as he triggered the motion sensor. "Oh, and McDonald?" he said.

"What?" Catherine replied without looking round.

"Can you stop by my office tomorrow, once you're all finished your shift?"

"That depends. Will I need a robe that ties at the back and my childhood vaccination records?"

McCoy snorted. "Nothing like that, no. Just want to discuss something with you."

"Aye, no problem, but I'm on switchover tomorrow, so my finish time'll be later than usual. Might not be able to make it until after twenty-hundred."

"That's okay. Amount of paperwork I need to provide to Santiago, I won't be packing up early, either."

She nodded, not that McCoy could see. "No problem. I'll stop by when I'm done."

Leonard turned to Chris. "If you're in before me, make sure the coffee goes on?"

He stepped through the door, departing as unassumingly as he'd arrived.

Janice gestured after the CMO. "You wouldn't have to put up with that if you were running the medical team. You'd be the one telling other people to make the coffee."

"I actually don't mind. Leonard makes _terrible_ coffee. One cup of the stuff, you start shaking so much you can actually see back in time."

"You should try his martinis," Nyota warned. "He made one for me the last time we stopped over on Yorktown, pretty sure I temporarily passed into the astral plane."

"Any idea what he wants to talk about tomorrow?" Janice said to McDonald.

Catherine shrugged. "No idea."

"He's probably gonna apologize for the whole not-watching-the-movie thing," Christine suggested.

"Eh, whatever," the engineer said, lazily waving a hand. "Was almost a month ago. Water's well and truly under the bridge. No apology expected or needed."

"Would've been a waste of your time, anyway," Nyota advised. "Spock and I watched it, it wasn't good."

McDonald's eyebrows shot up into her bangs. "You _watched_ it?"

"Uh huh."

"All the way through?"

"Unfortunately, yeah."

"And it was bad?"

"Hands down one of the worst skin movies I have _ever_ seen."

"Yeah, but what kind of bad are we talking here?" Catherine wanted to know. "Plot? Acting? Narrative and thematic structure? Implausible combinations of orifices and limbs?"

Nyota sighed. "Everything. Don't ask any more. It was just awful, okay? Made me embarrassed to be from the same species as the people who made it."

"Did the actors at least try to have sex in zero gee?"

The comm unit erupted again.

"Christ, it's like Sauchiehall Street in here tonight," the engineer complained. "Who the hell's calling you now?"

Nyota huffed and reached out to open the incoming channel. "Uhura," she said in a slightly impatient tone.

"It's McCoy again," an equally curt CMO announced. "Christine still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Christine called out.

"I need you in sickbay, ASAP. One of the trainee shuttle pilots badly misjudged a landing run, just smeared his shuttlecraft into the flight deck floor. Nobody's dead or very badly injured, but we got a whole buncha bruises and broken bones. Could use your help taping everyone back together."

Christine set her glass aside. "Be right there," she told her boss. "Have a two unit dose of metabolizer waiting for me."

"Already loaded and ready to go."

The line went dead as the doctor signed off.

"Sorry, ladies, but duty calls. A head nurse's work is never done."

Nyota made shooing motions with her hands. "Go put people back together. We'll finish this up another time."

"I suspect I'm about to find out an engineer's work is never done, either," Catherine added as she rose from her seat. "I'll come with you to get a shot of my own, then head down to the shuttle deck, see if the Damage Control crew needs any help."

Uhura turned to Rand. "Accidents generate a ton of formal reports and memos. The Captain might be looking for you."

"So much for a quiet night in with the girls," the yeoman observed.

"Now, now, Janice, we're _ladies_ , remember? Not girls," Christine corrected.

"Yeah, yeah."

"You okay to clean everything up?" Catherine said to Uhura, gesturing at the half-empty glasses and bowls of chips. "Don't mean to leave you in the lurch."

"I'm good," Nyota said, shooing again. "But next time, we do this at your place instead."

"Works for me."

"So two weeks from now, Catherine's cabin, same time, same day?" Janice proposed, leaning forward to put down her glass.

A round of smiles and nods.

"See you all then," Nyota concluded. "Stay safe, go do your thing."


End file.
